Reuters
14 December 2006
The Tamil Tigers' chief negotiator and ideologue Anton Balasingham, who marshalled the rebels through successive rounds of abortive peace talks with the Sri Lankan state, died of cancer in London on Thursday, the rebels said. Here are some key facts about him:
Balasingham was the top adviser and speech writer to reclusive Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He was chief negotiator for the rebels since 1985, when peace talks first began.
A British citizen, the 68-year-old was seen as the most acceptable face of the Tamil Tigers, willing to take risks on the possibility of a negotiated settlement to the ethnic conflict.
In June, he told an Indian television channel that the killing of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was a "monumental historical tragedy" which the Tigers deeply regretted, although Balasingham did not explicitly admit to the killing.
In April 2002 he reached out to Sri Lanka's Muslim minority, apologising for the Tigers expelling them from the north and promising to heal the rift.
Balasingham's Australian-born wife Adele, whom he married in 1978, has been an important figure in the rebel group, acting as an aide to her husband and a trainer to women members.
He was a diabetic for more than 35 years and underwent a kidney transplant some in 1999.
Balasingham was an avid reader and a keen student of world philosophies, had works by Karl Marx to Winston Churchill on the shelves of his study and said his hobbies included feeding birds and squirrels in his garden in the London suburb of New Malden.
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